Experimenting with some different media along my usual ink and watercolor by adding watercolor mask and Neocolor ll. This Every Day in May/EDM challenge is quite a challenge... 
Another one of my bizarre purchases from my old shopping days. It's for sale...
EDM # 6 a favorite well-loved object— I thought long and hard about what was my well-loved object and all I could come up with was Sophie. I guess, for me at this stage in my life, things aren't as important a family, friends and animals. Funny, because I used to have a lot of things. Now I am trying to get rid of many of those things. So Sophie it is! Here she is sniffing the flowers I put on the floor to paint.
A few of my latest portraits for Julia Kay's Portrait Party. It continues to be a great challenge. I really enjoy seeing everyone else's interpretations of the rest of the members. It's a kick! Check it out.
I usually use ink and watercolor, but these two are pencil and watercolor. I actually have gotten the oil paints out...well the box is out...
EDM # 4—Draw your mug. Drinking the Kusmi Detox tea that I bought in Paris. 
EDM #5—Draw your bed. My bed is always crowded when I'm in Maine and in Bali. That's what happens to animal lovers.
EDM #2—Draw a lamp. I don't really care much for the lamps in our house, but shhhh, don't tell Jerry. 
EDM #3—Draw a purse, wallet or bag. My very cool and durable Sea Bag was a gift from a friend and I have been loading it up and dragging it around for years. This company, located on Custom House Wharf on Portland Maine's waterfront, makes custom tote bags out of recycled sails. Check them out at Sea Bags...you might just have to get one.
Still obsessed with doing portraits for Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr. Above is my friend Donna. Together, we survived the Dalvero Academy boot-camp last summer and we are going back again.
I live in the heart of the city, but the country is just over the bridge. On my way to getting my computer fixed, I passed by nurseries and farms all enjoying a beautiful spring day here in Maine. 
Spring is very early this year and everything is blooming like crazy. It is glorious. Beautiful flowering trees including Magnolias are bursting out all over the city.
Forsythia is always the first sign of spring and it is such a vibrant splash of yellow after a long gray winter.
I am still enjoying (okay, I'm a bit obsessed) for doing portraits for Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr. It is such great way to practice, practice, practice. These studies are quite challenging. I try to capture likeness through lines, marks and color. I then have to post them along with portraits from other talented artists. Then of course, the person I am sketching gets to see the portrait also. Yikes—scary!
I usually add color to most everything I do, but decided to submit these two just as ink sketches.
A quick sketch of a bouquet of tulips that were used as a photo-shoot prop. Once again, by the time I got around to sketching them they were on their way into the trash.
We will be going back to Bali soon, so I am getting into my Bali mind set. This is a portrait of my friend Yanti.
And then I did beautiful Yanti again, mixing it up a bit with more dramatic color and pencils.
A quick watercolor of the Easter tulips before they got tossed. I added some digital lines using Corel Painter. Digital art is a total unknown area for me, but I am curious about it. It is quite awkward for me to make my hand move the cursor to do the work or go the direction I want. It is not like moving a pen around on a piece of paper, but you can hit the "undo" button. I do worry about the work looking too "digital" but I must keep learning.
This is my father Jim Lawson, 84 years old. Walks two miles a day and goes to the gym to workout with Todd, his personal trainer, three times a week. He is in amazing shape. Every evening he looks forward to watching Jeopardy with a glass of Two Buck Chuck. Always eats an artichoke with his dinner and has for 15 years.
My mom, Jacqueline Lawson is 85, raised three kids through the 60's and 70's. She says it just about did her in. Says her life changed in 1967, which coincidentally was the year I turned 13...HA!
My little brother James. Sometimes it is hard for me not to think of us still as kids. I look across the room and wonder "who is that guy", and think, "wasn't it not so long ago that he was just an annoying little 10 year old kid?"
Here we are, still going strong. It must be all those artichokes! That's me in between my parents, the oldest of three kids. 
My mom and dad and I spent a lot of time sitting on the patio in the warm California sun talking, reading and just being together. It was a nice way to reconnect. My father always wears a hat and a bit of a grimace. I had to keep telling him to turn that frown upside down.
My father eats an artichoke a day with dinner and has for at least 15 years. He steams them in a little water with lots of garlic and fresh lime juice from their lime trees. He believes they are one of the reasons for his good health and longevity. He says it's all those antioxidants.
After his morning walk and a gym workout my father usually takes a nap (or two). Man he deserves it!
This is my friend Tris. She punched me in the stomach on the playground the first day of Kindergarten all those years ago. She was very bossy, even then, and we have been friends ever since. We have quite a history. 
Portrait of MiaBia DC for Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr which can be seen here.
Virginia Hein is a California artist, Urban Sketcher and a member of Julia's portrait party found here on Flickr. She has wonderful hair and a sweet orange cat.
I joined Julia Kay's Portrait Party on Flickr last week. The process is to submit/post photos of yourself on Flickr and in turn you do portraits of all the other artists in the pool. How FUN is that!!! 
